India Stocks Drop to Six-Month Low on Capital Outflows, Cash Ban

Asian equity markets ended mostly in green on Thursday, even after the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke its seven-day winning streak overnight and oil prices retreated on bearish inventory data from the US Energy Information Administration.

The Sensex lost 49.39 points or 0.18% at the day's low of 26,249.30 in morning trade.

The Sensex, which opened at 26,304.90 on Thursday, finished at 26,227.62, down by 71.07 or 0.27 percent.

The Nifty, after shuttling between 8,151.25 and 8,060.30, concluded 31.65 points or 0.39 per cent down at 8,079.95, a level last seen on May 26, 2016, when it closed at 8,069.65.

The BSE consumer durable index slumped 900 points in less than two trading sessions, amid low demand projection for goods in the near future as people go hunting for cash countrywide.

The BSE market breadth was skewed in favour of the bears - with 1,671 declines and 943 advances.

Initially on Thursday, the benchmark indices opened on a flat note, as investors were cautious over a possible United States rate hike in December. "Investors are also keeping an eye out for the US Fed's Janet Yellen's speech later in the evening".

Sentiment also took a hit on sustained foreign capital outflow from emerging markets, including India, and the dollar climbing to its highest mark in over 13 years. Asian markets also advanced higher not just in their respective countries but also in overseas stock markets, all because of the sharp gain in the USA stock markets. But, fell afterwards to 26,239.21 on fag-end selling pressure before closing at 26,298.69, showing a marginal loss of 5.94 points or 0.02 per cent.

Foreign funds continued their selling pressure, offloading shares worth a net Rs 1,957.04 crore yesterday, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges. Wipro declined as much as 2.45 percent.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 3.21%, Power Grid Corpn. up by 2.66%, GAIL India up by 1.52%, Cipla up by 1.12% and NTPC up by 1.10%. Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 tumbled 0.5 per cent to 5,320.60 and Seoul's Kospi was nearly unchanged at 1,974.27.